I don't think this competition was designed to fund graduate students. It seems to be a student competition. It could be funded with sponsorships like many other student competitions.
From a NASA HQ release [March 2005]:
The winners of each initial 2005 challenge will receive $50,000. A second set of Tether and Beam Power challenges in 2006 are more technically challenging. Each challenge will award purses of $100,000, $40,000, and $10,000 for first, second, and third place.
It will be interesting to see if NASA increases the difficulty of the challenge as planned, or if the decide to keep at at the first year level of difficulty since nobody was successful this year.
You are right. Entering one of these contests is not a sound financial investment. If a group of students wanted to get involved in this program they would need to start looking for sponsors. Just like the DARPA Grand Challenge and any number of student design competitions.
I suppose I see competitions such as this one targeted more to students than to faculty. Where faculty need to be more concerned with doing research that earns their living, students may have the freedom to participate in contests such as this one either through a university club or senior design project. Student teams seem to find a lot of sponsorship dollars for competitions like this.
Clarke may have written the definitive sci-fi book on space elevators, but Brad Edwards has written the "definitive" non-fiction book on space elevators based on his initial engineering study of the topic.
I place definitive in quotes because, as he notes, the technologies Edwards discusses are continuing to make advances since the book was published.
What happened to a space elevator by 2015?
We still need lots of technological advancements to be able to build a space elevator. The ribbon cable material(carbon nanotubes top the list) needs to be manufacturable in lengths of 100,000 km with a very high tensile strength. The power beaming technology proposed to power the "climbers" also needs to be developed further.
Good point. IIRC, using CNT's with a tensile strength of 130 GPa resulted in a taper ration of only 1.5. Surely we could afford to increase the taper somewhat.
Interestingly, Edwards drives home the point of how impractical steel is for this application by explaining that a ribbon one molecule wide at the base would need to be wider that the solar system at the top to support its own weight!
In his book Edwards cites a launch cost of $1,154/kg to GEO for the space elevator compared to $60,000/kg to GEO for the shuttle and $15,000/kg by "commercial launch".
So you are absolutely right that the cost savings per launch would be emmense.
The current plan is not to carry fuel for the elevator, but to use a very high power laser to beam power to a collector on the underside of the crawler.
The first one is up only. The spent crawlers are used as counterweight at the end of the tether. The beauty is that once you build on it becomes much, much less expensive and much easier to build another and another. Other tethers could be designated as down only.
Can we confirm this? What is the highest measured tensile strength of CNT's thus far?
In his book, (c)2002, Edwards cites a 2000 study that measured tensile strengths as high as 64.3 GPa. His calculations for the space elevator are based on 130 GPa. He also states that the theoretical tensile strenth is around 300 GPa.
So does anybody know what the strongest CNT's measured thus far have been?
I got the impression that this was just an incremental test of CRAWLER development and had nothing to do with the ribbon design. I could be wrong, but thats how it sounded to me. But if you want to be picky about it, how about the fact that power was not transmitted by laser. Or that the didn't have to dodge space debris, or deal with the radiation the real one will.
Sounds like poo poo'ing the Wright brothers for not crossing the Atlantic when the took to the air in Kittyhawk.
It would be much more informitive if the article told what percentage of the sheets were carbon nanotubes. Also what are the lengths of the individual tubes (average and longest). As well as the bonding properties between the strands in this manufacturing process.
I'm happy to see large scale production of carbon nanotubes in any form I'd just like to know how much closer this brings us to a viable space elevator material.
Many of us "see how blindly impossible" your suggestions was. We just weren't all convince you did. Most slashdot discussions about space elevators include several retarded "to the moon" comments from folks that don't have a clue.
This is a stop gap measure. NASA has made public their plans to develop vehicles, both manned and unmanned, based on the shuttle platform. NASA has also made it clear that the CEV will not be completed by the time the shuttle is retired. Right now there is a projected 2 year gap. Clearly, this agreement is to allow NASA the access to space they require until their new systems are complete (or while shuttle is on the ground pending RTF again).
Anyway you look at it NASA is not saying that we should invest in old Russian technology. They are using what is readily available until they have the new systems in place.
NASA HAS laid out its plan to replace the space shuttle with a flexible combination of vehicles capable of heavy lifting and manned space flight. This system will be capable of everything from missions to the moon and mars as well as launching and servicing large scale observatories or space stations.
Why do people not understand that the recent plans NASA has laid out are about much more than just going to the moon? It is about establishing a fleet that will serve the many needs of future missions.
In a recent appearance at GSFC Administrator Mike Griffin discussed how his budget proposals contained a realignment with in the science missons. He explained that the science missons had become more mars-centric than they would like, and sought to strike a better balance between mars science missions and earth, lunar, and solar science missons. With this in mind I would submit that those cuts had less to do the the Moon/Mars initiative and more to do with restructing the science portfolio of the agency.
Slashdot Mirror
Its a game. I get the impression that too many people that play in these 'virtual worlds' are losing touch with reality.
I don't think this competition was designed to fund graduate students. It seems to be a student competition. It could be funded with sponsorships like many other student competitions.
From a NASA HQ release [March 2005]:
The winners of each initial 2005 challenge will receive $50,000. A second set of Tether and Beam Power challenges in 2006 are more technically challenging. Each challenge will award purses of $100,000, $40,000, and $10,000 for first, second, and third place.
Read the entire release here .
It will be interesting to see if NASA increases the difficulty of the challenge as planned, or if the decide to keep at at the first year level of difficulty since nobody was successful this year.
You are right. Entering one of these contests is not a sound financial investment. If a group of students wanted to get involved in this program they would need to start looking for sponsors. Just like the DARPA Grand Challenge and any number of student design competitions. I suppose I see competitions such as this one targeted more to students than to faculty. Where faculty need to be more concerned with doing research that earns their living, students may have the freedom to participate in contests such as this one either through a university club or senior design project. Student teams seem to find a lot of sponsorship dollars for competitions like this.
Clarke may have written the definitive sci-fi book on space elevators, but Brad Edwards has written the "definitive" non-fiction book on space elevators based on his initial engineering study of the topic.
I place definitive in quotes because, as he notes, the technologies Edwards discusses are continuing to make advances since the book was published.
Both Fountians of Paradise and The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System are on my nightstand at the moment. I highly recommend both to anyone interested in the space elevator concept.
What happened to a space elevator by 2015? We still need lots of technological advancements to be able to build a space elevator. The ribbon cable material(carbon nanotubes top the list) needs to be manufacturable in lengths of 100,000 km with a very high tensile strength. The power beaming technology proposed to power the "climbers" also needs to be developed further.
1)The goal isn't to get back as fast as possible.
2)It will cost 55% of what the Apollo program cost.
Interestingly, Edwards drives home the point of how impractical steel is for this application by explaining that a ribbon one molecule wide at the base would need to be wider that the solar system at the top to support its own weight!
In his book Edwards cites a launch cost of $1,154/kg to GEO for the space elevator compared to $60,000/kg to GEO for the shuttle and $15,000/kg by "commercial launch".
So you are absolutely right that the cost savings per launch would be emmense.
The current plan is not to carry fuel for the elevator, but to use a very high power laser to beam power to a collector on the underside of the crawler.
The first one is up only. The spent crawlers are used as counterweight at the end of the tether. The beauty is that once you build on it becomes much, much less expensive and much easier to build another and another. Other tethers could be designated as down only.
In his book, (c)2002, Edwards cites a 2000 study that measured tensile strengths as high as 64.3 GPa. His calculations for the space elevator are based on 130 GPa. He also states that the theoretical tensile strenth is around 300 GPa.
So does anybody know what the strongest CNT's measured thus far have been?
I got the impression that this was just an incremental test of CRAWLER development and had nothing to do with the ribbon design. I could be wrong, but thats how it sounded to me. But if you want to be picky about it, how about the fact that power was not transmitted by laser. Or that the didn't have to dodge space debris, or deal with the radiation the real one will. Sounds like poo poo'ing the Wright brothers for not crossing the Atlantic when the took to the air in Kittyhawk.
It would be much more informitive if the article told what percentage of the sheets were carbon nanotubes. Also what are the lengths of the individual tubes (average and longest). As well as the bonding properties between the strands in this manufacturing process. I'm happy to see large scale production of carbon nanotubes in any form I'd just like to know how much closer this brings us to a viable space elevator material.
Many of us "see how blindly impossible" your suggestions was. We just weren't all convince you did. Most slashdot discussions about space elevators include several retarded "to the moon" comments from folks that don't have a clue.
The lasers stay on the ground. And the base of the elevator is to be attached to a platform in the Pacific Ocean so the sharks shouldn't be a problem.
This is a stop gap measure. NASA has made public their plans to develop vehicles, both manned and unmanned, based on the shuttle platform. NASA has also made it clear that the CEV will not be completed by the time the shuttle is retired. Right now there is a projected 2 year gap. Clearly, this agreement is to allow NASA the access to space they require until their new systems are complete (or while shuttle is on the ground pending RTF again). Anyway you look at it NASA is not saying that we should invest in old Russian technology. They are using what is readily available until they have the new systems in place.
NASA HAS laid out its plan to replace the space shuttle with a flexible combination of vehicles capable of heavy lifting and manned space flight. This system will be capable of everything from missions to the moon and mars as well as launching and servicing large scale observatories or space stations.
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/cev.html
Why do people not understand that the recent plans NASA has laid out are about much more than just going to the moon? It is about establishing a fleet that will serve the many needs of future missions.
NASA or any other space agency interested in "live off of the land" technologies.
100 years of flight, not 100 years of NASA.
100 years of flight just past.
It is estimated that this program will be 55% of the cost of the Apollo program.
1 failure per 100 vs. 1 failure per 1000
Ten time safer. You will see the same number of failures for ten time the number of trials.
In a recent appearance at GSFC Administrator Mike Griffin discussed how his budget proposals contained a realignment with in the science missons. He explained that the science missons had become more mars-centric than they would like, and sought to strike a better balance between mars science missions and earth, lunar, and solar science missons. With this in mind I would submit that those cuts had less to do the the Moon/Mars initiative and more to do with restructing the science portfolio of the agency.
Better yet, read Dr. Bradley Edwards book. I've attended a lecture of his on space elevators. Very impressive stuff! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0972 604502/qid=1127141082/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/104-005660 5-1173500?v=glance&s=books